Blake, of the mild and the amiable Claypole, one of whom had strenuously opposed all the crimes of her father's ambition and the other had carried the thunder and the fame of his country to the extremities of the world, we are shocked by the infamy of the deed, and are tempted in the bitterness of our hearts to vent a curse upon the savageness of the perpetrators.

"Glows our resentment into guilt?—what guilt

Can equal violations of the dead?

The dead how sacred! sacred is the dust

Of this heaven-labour'd form, erect, divine.

Respecting the great Blake, whose name occupies the first place in our naval annals, and who, for integrity and a truly pa triotic spirit, is unquestionably one of the first characters in our history, the reader can require no information.—Mrs. Claypole was the Protector's favourite daughter; and she had been uniform in her opposition to all the violences of his ambition. Her intercession for the life of the royalist, Doctor Hewett, had been so earnest, that her disappointment on its failure is supposed to have hastened the crisis of her death. The Protector's mother, whose relics were exposed to the same unworthy treatment, was equally adverse to his elevation and ambitious excesses. She was an excellent and amiable woman, and with her granddaughter, whom we have just mentioned, was entitled to the respect of all parties. Among the bodies torn on this occ3sion by brutal revenge from the sanctuary of the tomb, was that of May the continuator and translator of Lucan, and that of the celebrated Pym. The bodies, which were thus dug up and thrown together into a common pit, were more than twenty; and this detestable violation of the grave was stopped only by the popular indignatlon which it justly excited, and which the prudence of the government judged it proper to respect.

This heaven-assumed majestic robe of earth
He deign'd to wear, who hung the vast expanse
With azure bright, and clothed the sun in gold.
When every passion sleeps, that can offend;
When strikes us every motive, that can melt;
When man can wreak his malice uncontroll'd,-
That strongest curb on insult and ill-will,—
Then spleen to dust!"-

Freed from immediate danger, Milton had now leisure to reflect on all these revengeful and dishonourable violences of the government; and the impression made on his mind by the sufferings of his party may be distinctly traced in some pathetic and animated strains in the Samson Agonistes.

"God of our fathers! what is man!

That thou towards him with hand so various,
Or might I say contrarious,

Temper'st thy providence through his short course.
Not evenly, as thou rulest

The angelic orders, and inferior creatures mute,

Irrational and brute.

Nor do I name of men the common rout,

That wandring loose about,

Grow up and perish, as the summer fly,

Heads without name no more remembered;
But such as thou hast solemnly elected,
With gifts and graces eminently adorn'd,
To some great work, thy glory,

And people's safety, which in part they effect:

Yet towards these thus dignified, thou oft

Amidst their heighth of noon

Changest thy countenance and thy hand, with no regard
Of highest favours past

From thee on them, or them to thee of service.

Not only dost degrade them, or remit

To life obscured, which were a fair dismission,

But throw'st them lower than thou didst exalt them high;

Unseemly falls in human eye,

Too grievous for the trespass or omission:

Oft leavest them to the hostile sword

Of heathen and profane, their carcasses

To dogs and fowls a prey, or else captived;

Or to the unjust tribunals, under change of times,
And condemnation of the ungrateful multitude.
If these they 'scape, perhaps in poverty,

With sickness and disease thou bow'st them down,
Painful diseases, and deform'd,

In crude old age;

Though not disordinate, yet causeless suffering
The punishment of dissolute days: in fine,
Just or unjust alike seem miserable,

For oft alike both come to evil end."

Scarcely had Milton left his concealment when he was taken into custody, in consequence, as we may conclude, of the order for his apprehension which had been issued by the House of Commons on the 16th of June: but all our acquaintance with the transaction is derived from the following minutes in the Journals of that House.

66

Saturday 15th Decem. 1660.

"Ordered, that Mr. Milton now in custody of the Serjeant, attending this House, be forthwith released, paying his fees."

"Mond. 17th Decem.

"A complaint being made, that the Ser

jeant at arms had demanded excessive fees for the imprisonment of Mr. Milton:"

"Ordered, that it be referred to a committee for privileges, to examine this business, and to call Mr. Milton and the Serjeant before them, and to determine what is fit to be given to the Serjeant for his fees in this case."

On his return to society, Milton took a house in Holborn near to Red Lion Square; which he occupied only for a short term, as we find him, in 1662, residing in Jewin Street. From this situation he removed to a small house in the Artillery Walk adjoining to Bunhill Fields, where he continued during the remaining part of his life. The circumstance of his lodging for some intermediate time, after he left Jewin Street, with Millington the celebrated auctioneer, who was accustomed to lead his venerable inmate by the hand when he walked in the streets, is mentioned by Richardson on the testimony of a person, who was acquainted with Milton and who had frequently met him abroad with his conductor and host. The fact therefore ought not to be rejected in consequence of its omission by the other biographers of our author.

In Jewin Street, on the recommendation of his friend Dr. Paget, a physician of emi

nence in London to whom the lady was distantly related, he married his third wife, Elizabeth Minshull, the daughter of a gentleman of Cheshire. The domestic situation of Milton was now such as almost to compel him to seek for the aid and the protection of a wife. At fifty-four years of age, he was in a great degree submitted by his blindness to the power of others; and by his studious habits, from the indulgence of which all his resources of pleasure were derived, he was peculiarly disqualified for the management of a family. He had not indeed been wholly without the counsels and assistance of a female friend; for he had been indulged dur ing this period with the intimacy of Lady Ranelagh, the favourite and accomplished sister of the celebrated Robert Boyle. This estimable Lady, who had placed her son under Milton's care, seems to have been assiduous in discovering her sense of his high worth by rendering to him every service, which his circumstances could require or her's would enable her to offer. In one of the four letters to his pupil, which were published with his familiar epistles, he speaks of her, at that time preparing to depart for Ireland, in terms of the most grateful affection: "The absence," he says, " of your most excel